


The Magic Shop

by WhyNotFly



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Attempted self harm, Dehumanization, Happy Ending, Human Captivity, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mutilation, Objectification, Tooth Trauma, Trauma Recovery, queerplatonic jonmartin, softer than the tags imply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27294535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly
Summary: “How does it work?”  Martin asked without looking up, and the shopkeeper laughed lightly.  The hot embarrassment running up through him was enough to shake Martin out of the trance and he closed his fist around the earring before depositing it lightly on the glass countertop.  “Oh right.  Magic.”“Realmagic,” the old woman added, smiling coyly.Martin befriends the odd resident of a strange shop, and learns the truth about real magic.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 57
Kudos: 302





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to Osiris/SmallHorizons for going above and beyond with the beta help on this one, and also to the Writer's Discord crew who supported me writing this and gave me so much energy and so many good ideas. I hope this lives up to what you were all imagining!
> 
> This is the first of three chapters, all of which are already written and will be released over the weekend! I'll see you guys back here tomorrow for the dramatic continuation. Happy Halloween~!

The magic shop sat sandwiched in a too-small alley between the train station and a concrete parking structure. It looked abandoned, recessed back from the street and built from old, sagging wood, near to collapse. The dusty windows were blocked out by colorful curtains that seemed hand-knitted from the slight deviations in pattern and occasional snarl. The front step was rough, uneven stone, that looked like it had been sanded down right where it sat, and the shop built up around it.

Martin wouldn’t have even thought it was a shop at all, if not for the aged, wooden sign that hung above the entrance. It declared, with burnt-in letters six inches tall: _THE MAGIC SHOP_. Beneath that, dangling in the middle of the cheery door that had once been painted a dark blue but had since regressed into a stained and chipping melange of colors, was a small ceramic rectangle that added: _We are Open_.

Martin wasn’t really the type for magic. He hadn’t been raised superstitious. Sure, his mother had her quirks—chamsas, evil eyes, red ribbons tied around bed posts—but it wasn’t something she truly _believed_ in. And Martin didn’t either. He had enough on his plate without wasting what little money they had on mystical mumbo jumbo that was nothing but a placebo effect. His mum could keep her necklaces if she liked, but Martin knew they hadn’t kept his dad from leaving.

He never would have gone into the shop at all, really, if he hadn’t been just off the train into London, three hours early for a job interview that had him sick to his stomach with nerves, and desperate for help with directions. He’d always been a bit shit at reading maps. And like providence, there was The Magic Shop, sat small and welcoming and unassuming in its own beaten down sort of way. It looked like the kind of place Martin would want to live in someday. There were flower boxes outside the windows that were already overflowing with lilies and gardenias, even though it was only mid-February. The walls were light green and the trim was light pink. Propped up in front of the door was a welcome mat, hand-embroidered with little purple violets and moons.

It was wildly different from the nauseatingly overwhelming noise and towering buildings of London all around it, and before Martin knew it, he was already stepping inside. There was a bell, a bright, cheerful sound, and when the door shut behind him, all the traffic and trains and hubbub of the street outside were suddenly gone. Martin took in a deep breath, and it tasted like lavender.

“Hello there, love,” said the woman behind the counter. She was propped up on a stool and halfway through knitting something that looked like a scarf, or maybe the very beginnings of a blanket. She was old, older than Martin’s mum if he had to hazard a guess, and the wrinkles pressed deep into the corners of her eyes and mouth betrayed a long life of good humor. The deep crimson of her (probably) homemade jumper matched the warm and cozy atmosphere of the store all around her. “I’ve never seen you in here before.”

“I’m not from around here,” Martin blurted out in response. 

She eyed the paper map dangling from his hand and smiled with understanding. “We mostly get regulars in here, these days. You young folks don’t have much time for magic anymore.”

The inside of the Magic Shop was not like any magic shop Martin had ever been inside. There were no sticks of incense or glass bins filled with polished stones or cheap knock-off buddha statues or lucky cats. It almost reminded Martin more of some kind of boutique craft store than a new age witch shop. There were chunky bracelets and necklaces with smooth round charms dangling off them, arranged in neat rows and labeled by effect. Wisdom. Charisma. Knowledge. Insight. Brightly colored cloth pouches, about the size of Martin’s palm, dangled from a display tree on the counter. Along the walls, there were chunky, hand-knit mittens in silky black and gray and a small display of roughly-made tallow candles and perfumes and inks and some other bottles of clear and milky liquids that Martin couldn’t immediately place. On the far side of the room, arranged almost messily on a shelf, were a few leather notebooks, and in front of them, what looked like individual sheafs of mottled, light brown paper. From a high shelf behind the register, a few roughly carved figurines stared down at him. Under the counter, behind a pane of glass, he could see charms that reminded him of the warding necklace his mother always wore--dozens of staring eyes, carved out of a pure white ivory. 

The whole place was only about the size of his living room, packed tight with trinkets that left it feeling more cozy than stifling. Behind the counter, at the back of the shop, was a single closed door with a _Restricted_ sign hanging off it. Probably a storeroom for keeping all the products that wouldn’t fit amongst the overwhelming jumble of knick knacks. 

“Nice place,” Martin said, because his mother didn’t raise him to be rude and barge in somewhere asking favors.

“Thank you,” said the old woman behind the counter. “Do you need some kind of magic in your life?”

“I hope not,” Martin answered affably as he stepped forward towards the counter. His steps were muffled by the thick, overlapping, mismatched rugs that lined the floor. “Provided this interview goes well.”

“You’re trying to find work here in London?” The woman asked with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s the plan. It’s just an office job, but I could really use the steady paycheck. I’ve gotten to the point of being desperate enough to swim outside my usual circles.” Martin wasn’t sure why he was saying all of this, though it was probably best to get it out of his system here with some old woman he’d never meet again than to accidentally blab about his egregiously fictionalized credentials in front of the interviewer. It’d be a difficult blow for his ego to get over, and more importantly, he was running low on ways to pay for both the rent and his mum’s medication.

“You sound like a very diligent, mature young man.” It was probably pathetic how much just that sliver of praise made Martin’s cheeks go warm. “There’s no reason you don’t deserve a little help with getting the job you’ve worked so hard for.”

“I appreciate that you have to do the sales pitch,” Martin said with an awkward chuckle, already lifting his hands in polite refusal to hopefully cut the conversation short before the shopkeeper got annoyed. “But I really don’t have the kind of money to throw away on good luck charms.”

“Nonsense,” the old woman answered, blowing past what he’d thought was a clear cut implication. “You can’t put a price on good luck. How many paychecks do you have to get from that new job before it was worth buying the magic that secured it for you?”

“Ah, so now we’re just assuming I couldn’t get the position on my own merits?”

“I assume the merits this office is looking for include at least a high school degree.” Martin’s spine stiffened in instinctual panic. The old woman just kept smiling at him like they were discussing the weather rather than pulling out intimate and unshared secrets. Sure he had a bit of a baby face, but after a few months of concentrated effort he’d actually gotten a decent beard going, and between that and the suit and tie he’d scrounged together for the interview he fancied he looked quite grown up. Certainly didn’t get hassled by anyone on the train ride up here about truancy.

“How did you know that?” Martin asked slowly, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

“It’s a magic shop, sweetheart. You should expect some magic.” After a line like that, Martin was almost expecting the old woman to whip out a deck of tarot cards or a crystal ball and foretell his imminent career-based doom, but instead she simply reached up and brushed back her silvered hair to reveal a tiny ivory earring. An eye, just like the ones beneath the counter. She unfastened the back and held it out meaningfully, and Martin found himself reaching out a hand to let her drop it into his palm without really thinking through the action.

It was warm, which made sense considering it was just in the old woman’s ear, but there was something about it that just felt _powerful_. Martin could almost swear he felt it humming in his palm, and the busy part of his brain, far from the front of conscious thought, was already describing the sensation in verse. This was nothing like his mother’s necklaces with their dangling charms against the evil eye. This felt almost _alive_.

“That,” Martin heard hazily through his fixation on the earring, “is for insight. A handy trick. Helps you understand other people better, see the truth about them.”

“How does it work?” Martin asked without looking up, and the shopkeeper laughed lightly. The hot embarrassment running up through him was enough to shake Martin out of the trance and he closed his fist around the earring before depositing it lightly on the glass countertop. “Oh right. Magic.”

“ _Real_ magic,” the old woman added, smiling coyly.

“Right.” Now that he wasn’t touching it, Martin felt a little ashamed about how taken he had been with the supposedly magic earring. What about it had he thought was powerful? It was just a piece of simple jewelry sitting small and uninspiring on the counter. He wasn’t a kid anymore, he was seventeen and he was out here in London trying to get a real job, not chase fairytales. He wasn’t about to trade his last cow for magic beans, no matter how well it worked out in the stories. His life wasn’t a story, and his mum wouldn’t appreciate giants coming crashing down on their little flat. Martin already made enough noise, stomping about while she was trying to sleep.

“Listen, ma’am, thank you for—”

“Angela,” the old woman cut him off quickly. “You may call me Angela.”

“R-right,” Martin stumbled over his point for a moment before remembering what he was about to say. “Listen Angela, I really appreciate the, er, the hospitality, but I don’t need magical insight to know things about my interviewer or anything like that. What I actually need are some directions? If you could?” Martin holds out his map in front of himself with a slightly pained smile.

“You’re right, you don’t need insight.” Angela hummed thoughtfully and looked Martin up and down with a critical eye that left Martin shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. The edges of his map crinkled in his grasp. “You need something that’ll bring out all your best parts that you keep locked away under that assumption that you aren’t good enough.”

Martin’s laugh this time was even more pained. “You forgot to put the earring back on.”

“You’ve only been in my shop a few minutes and already I can tell you woefully underestimate yourself, mister….”

“Martin,” Martin supplied quickly. “I mean, that’s not my last name, it’s actually Mr. Blackwood but that’s just, that sounds very wrong so just, you can just call me Martin.”

“Martin,” Angela said his name with a warmth like a fresh-stoked fire. “You’re qualified for this position, whether you think you are or not.”

Martin wanted to ask how she knew, but he had a feeling all he’d get was another knowing smile and nod at the magical artifacts all around them, which really wasn’t an answer at all. Angela turned to the side and began to spin a little standing display of paper charms. She ran her fingers over each one in turn before shaking her head and moving on. 

“Here we are, this is what you need.” Angela reached out and grasped Martin’s hand by the wrist, pulling it in closer so she could place a small charm in the palm of his hand. It didn’t give him the heebie jeebies the way he’d thought her earring did, it was just a simple paper envelope in white and green, dangling from a loop of ribbon. One by one she pushed Martin’s fingers in until his fist closed around it.

“This is a charm of confidence, in a way,” Angela said with a warm smile that pushed the wrinkles up her face. “It is the magic of charisma, to find the words bottled up inside you and make them flow and put them in the proper order to impress and command attention.”

Martin’s mouth quirked in an uncomfortable half grin. “What if I don’t contain the right words?”

“Of course you do.” Angela spoke with a surety that Martin wished he felt. “You are clever and competent and intelligent in a way no school could teach you. You deserve this job, and now you have the little boost you need to prove it to them.” She squeezed her hands around his closed fist around the paper charm, and in spite of himself, he did feel better. Maybe a little superstition wouldn’t kill him. He could use every advantage offered to him. His mum needed him to get this job.

“Take it,” Angela said, and before he could argue, she shook her head resolutely. “What’s the point of magic if it isn’t used? You can consider it a thank you gift for keeping an old woman such good company. I don’t get many visitors to the shop anymore. And if my magic can help you get the job, well,” Angela shrugged and then grinned up at Martin with a mischievous look in her eyes, “I suppose that means my shop will be on your commute, and maybe you’ll have time to stop in more often.”

“Of course,” Martin promised without thinking. But when he thought about it in the next moment, he certainly didn’t regret it. The shop was warm and cozy, and Angela seemed so sweet and lonely, and he felt so much better now than he had when he’d come in. When Angela finished pointing out the route he should follow on his map, she tied the paper charm to the handle of his messenger bag and pinched his cheek in a fond way that no one had done since he was very little.

“See you soon,” Angela said as he headed out, and Martin found himself hoping that those words would be true.

***

“Angela!” The old brass bell hanging in the door to the magic shop clanged wildly as Martin rushed inside, heedless in his excitement. The proprietor of the shop—who, in spite of the late April warmth, was wrapped in a shawl _over_ a cardigan, both of which were knit out of the same silver thread that reminded Martin of her own grey hair—looked up from her stool behind the counter and smiled at him.

“You’ve recently received some exciting news?”

“Again with the whole fortune teller routine?” Martin teased as he all but bounced up to the counter and reached around for the extra stool she kept tucked away there. She’d never said explicitly that she’d added it for him to use during his visits, but she’d never contradicted it either.

“Just a long, long lifetime’s worth of intuition.” Angela’s eyes glittered with mirth as she cleared away the clutter on the counter to make room for him. It looked like some sort of weaving, long strands of dark brown leather braiding together into what could be a bracelet, or maybe a headband. Angela made every product in the store by hand, Martin was pretty sure she’d even tanned that leather all by herself from scratch. Sometimes he wondered just how big the mysterious back room of the shop must be to accommodate all of that. She could do it at home, Martin supposed, but every time he tried to picture Angela’s house it just looked like the magic shop. Beaten down walls painted every color, piled up rugs on the floor, animal hides drying on racks, and half-completed knitting projects lying draped over worn pastel couches with poultices sunning on the windowsills. 

He wouldn’t mind living in a place like that. With his own mum, of course. Not with Angela. Even if she’d probably actually want him there.

“So I take it the ink worked its wonders for you?” Angela asked, with that same gently unnerving insight she always seemed to carry.

“Like magic,” Martin breathed, their own private joke. “I’m published, Angela, like really actually published in a proper literary journal. It’s even one people have _heard_ of.”

“Congratulations, love,” Angela said, and actually sounded like she meant it, like she was genuinely invested in his success. “I’m afraid my supernatural foresight didn’t extend quite far enough to be prepared with champagne, but I could make us both a nice cup of tea if you’d like. You seem frazzled.”

Martin patted nervously at his curls where they were sticking out in wild directions. “I may have ran to the train station. Had a lot of energy to work through.”

“Well you just sit right there and collect your thoughts wherever they’ve scattered off to.” Angela stood from her stool and brushed her hands off decisively.

“You sure you wouldn’t like me to make it? You don’t have to get up.”

“Nonsense. You stay. I’ll be right back.”

Martin didn’t bother arguing, he knew how this conversation went. How it always went. Martin offered and Angela refused and he was never, ever allowed into the back room. _Restricted,_ said the hand painted sign in curling font, though who it was restricted to was anyone’s guess. As far as Martin could tell, Angela was the only one who worked here.

It had been a few months now since Martin had gotten the job he’d come to London to interview for. Whether it was genuine magic or just the placebo effect, he’d never felt more confident in his life, and he figured it was only polite to come back and thank Angela for the gift. She was a sweet old lady and clearly lonely, he’d never seen a single customer in her shop in all the time he’d been here. Since it was right on his commute, he kept coming back, partially out of the goodness of his heart and partially because he genuinely enjoyed her company. He could never stay long what with his mum waiting at home, but it was nice to have a friend in London.

“It’s a celebration so I broke out something fancy.” Martin looked up from his thoughts as Angela pressed the hot mug into his hands. It was white with big block letters that proclaimed her to be the world’s best grandma. 

“Is it magic?” Martin asked, staring down at the milky brown liquid.

“Chai,” Angela corrected with a smile. “Loose leaf from India. My coworkers brought it back as a gift from their trip there. I don’t think tea with magic in it would taste very good, and the effects would be rather unpredictable.”

“And here I was beginning to think you ran this whole shop entirely alone.”

“Oh I basically do,” Angela sighed. “I just hire some men part time to harvest my ingredients for me. Tried to get my daughter into the business but kids have their dreams. I run this shop because I love it, and my mother loved it, and her mother’s mother and so on. But magic isn’t the kind of thing you can be forced to enjoy.”

“Power of belief, is it?” Martin asked, thinking of a dozen movies and books that said just the same. “If you don’t believe in the magic it won’t work?”

“Oh not at all,” Angela chuckled. “Worked for you didn’t it? Miser though you were. No, the magic is inherent and inescapable, but the process of working with it can be unsavory at times. It’s not a task for the weak of will.”

“I’m not thoroughly convinced it’s real yet,” Martin countered in a teasing tone. It was a debate they’d had dozens of times by now, and one he didn’t want to win anymore. The poem he’d written with Angela’s magical ink had been like nothing he’d ever written before. The words had flowed from the tip of his pen and spilled across the page almost as easily as breathing.

“Buy one of my notebooks to write your next poetry anthology in.” Angela took a knowing sip of her tea without breaking eye contact. “We’ll see how you feel about magic then.”

The notebooks were beautiful and they taunted Martin. Each one was different. The covers were hand-pulled leather, and the pages were soft and heavy. Angela had stitched each one together with silky silver and black thread, all up and down the spine. They looked like they were plucked straight from medieval times, and Angela promised that whatever was written in them would be the truest reflection of Martin’s own soul. The poetry that had always been lurking in his heart but he didn’t know how to form into words.

“You know I can’t afford one of those things. Even salaried I still have rent and mum just went on a free standing respirator. I might need to hire someone to watch her while I’m at work.”

“You’re going to drive a poor old woman out of business with the handouts you take from me,” Angela moaned in faux-despair. She knew damn well that she was the one who insisted on giving him everything for free.

“Oh save your belly aching.” Martin took a sip of his tea, it truly was delicious, and then set it down on the counter so he could rise to his feet and cross the room to the little display of ink pots in the corner. Each ink was a slightly different color, and a slightly different consistency. In front of the blue bottles, the ink inside a watery gray, was an index card labeled _Lacrimore: For Emotion._

Martin grabbed two and plopped them back on the counter. “I’m paying for these today.”

“How could I possibly charge a famous poet?”

“Angela.” Martin’s tone allowed for no argument. He’d gotten paid for the poem anyway, and it seemed wrong not to pass it back along to the shop that had made it possible. He’d put the money directly into the till if he needed.

“Alright, alright,” Angela conceded with her hands raised up above her head. “But we’re doing a special promotion today. Buy two bottles of ink and get a piece of hide paper for free.”

Martin shook his head. “You really are going to go out of business.”

“Oh hush. This shop’s been here for thousands of years. I doubt anything could change that.” Martin never could tell when Angela said things like that just how truthful she was being. The decrepit old building certainly looked like it could be a couple thousand years old. 

“Besides,” Angela continued. “It’s not like I have anyone to succeed me anyway. When I’m gone, who knows what will happen to this old place.”

Martin traced the rim of his mug, letting his fingers linger over the blocky text printed on the side. “What about your grandkids?”

“I barely even get to see them on holidays anymore,” Angela answered, her words heavy with a sadness built up over many years. “Their mother doesn’t think the shop is a good place for children. A bad influence. It’s my fault, really, I tried to put too much on her too soon.”

“I would have loved to grow up in a place like this.” Martin planted a hand on the counter and leaned over it eagerly. He’d said it without thinking, but he meant every word. He loved it here, and he had since the moment he’d walked in. The shop smelled warm like curling up on a couch next to someone and pressing your nose into their shoulder, salt and faded perfume and the beat of a distant pulse. It felt like home.

Angela smiled back at him, a tired, grateful thing. “You’re a wonderful boy, Martin,” she said and it threaded warmth between his ribs. “Taking the time out to keep an old woman company. Your mum is lucky to have such an attentive son.”

Martin’s smile in response was drawn tight, sketched onto his face with a shaking hand. 

“Yes,” he agreed flatly, trying not to think of the heated conversation they’d had the night before about her going to a retirement community. He knew a thing or two about family deciding they were better off without you.

“And if she doesn’t realize how lucky she is, she can come here and take it up with me.” Angela crossed her arms and shot Martin a stink eye so sour he had to laugh. He couldn’t picture this tiny old woman intimidating anyone. 

“I’ll be sure to let her know.” Martin smiled again and this time it settled naturally.

“Drink your tea, sweetheart, or it’ll get cold.”

“Ah, before I do, I brought something for you.” Martin turned and rifled through his messenger bag, pulling out a book he bought at the train station, full of a thousand and one sudoku puzzles. “As a thank you for last time.”

Angela laughed. “Is this what I get instead of making the dedication page in your eventual poetry anthology?”

“I think you deserve both.” Martin set the book down on the counter and he took his tea and stool both and pulled them around to sit behind the counter. They made it through another full cup and ten of the puzzles before his phone buzzed with an alarm telling him he had to get home and make dinner. Angela ended up conning him into taking three more soft leather pages for free to go with his two pots of ink, in exchange for a promise that he’d come back tomorrow and entertain her again. He made that promise with a smile, and he made it again the next day, and again until it stopped needing to be said aloud.

***

“Martin, are you sure you’re alright?”

Martin picked up a puzzle piece and jabbed it miserably into a space that hadn’t fit it a minute ago and didn’t fit it now. He felt Angela’s eyes on the top of his bowed head but he couldn’t bring himself to look up to meet them. The whole point of coming here today was to stop wallowing, to do something nice and productive and be around someone who actually wanted him.

He’d brought a brand new jigsaw and everything. Why couldn’t he just stop being such a pathetic waste for once in his goddamn life?

“Oh no, Martin, sweetheart,” Angela cooed, standing up from her stool and reaching out across the counter to cover his hand with her own, wrinkled and calloused. His tears gathered at the tip of his nose and fell against her skin, running rivulets down to the glass countertop, leaving dark stains on the cardboard puzzle pieces. He’d turned 22 just a few weeks ago, he was supposed to be past this now. He was supposed to be an adult.

With a soft thunk, Angela set a tissue box on the counter next to his arm.

“Tell me what’s wrong, hun.” One of Angela’s hands slid slowly up his arm, squeezing slightly, and just the warmth of her skin made another sob crawl up through his throat. It had been so long since anyone touched him.

“M-my mum,” Martin said, trying his best to collect himself and get the words out without stuttering all over them like an idiot. “She denied me v-v-visitation this morning. I got a, got a call from her home that I can’t—”

Martin’s words fell apart again as he curled further into himself and cried. He’d been living on his own in London for the past half a year and he’d thought that had been bad enough, facing the bare beige walls of his empty single flat. But now he was more alone than ever.

He barely noticed Angela get up and walk around the counter, his vision clogged with tears and his head starting to ache from the pressure of it all. He grabbed blindly for a tissue and pressed it to his face, trying to hide from the light and the noise and his own insufficiencies. Angela’s thin arms wound around his shoulders and Martin leaned greedily into her shoulder like an immature, needy child.

“I’m so sorry,” Angela murmured, her hand brushing gently down the soft curls at the nape of his neck. “It’s not your fault.”

“Then w-whose fault would it be?” Martin sniffled. “I’m the one she c-can’t stand to be around.”

“That’s her failing, not yours.”

Martin didn’t answer, just tucked his face in deeper to the soft silver of her ever-present shawl. It was silky smooth and smelled like smoke. She squeezed him tight, a surprising amount of strength in her frail body, and he let himself be squeezed as he cried until he couldn’t find anymore tears inside himself.

“Please, Angela,” Martin whispered into her shoulder. “Please give me some magic. There has to be something that will fix me.”

“You don’t need to be fixed, Martin,” Angela answered, her voice soft near his ear. 

“That’s not true.” Martin didn’t want to leave the comforting circle of Angela’s arms, but he stepped back anyway, rubbing at his eyes. “That’s all that’s been happening since I came here. You gave me magic to make me get a job, and magic to make me get published, why won’t you just give me magic to make her want me?”

“That isn’t how magic works, Martin, I wasn’t giving you anything you didn’t already have.” Angela rested a hand on Martin’s chest. “The magic just helped bring out the potential that was always inside you.”

The crack down Martin’s heart splintered out in a dozen directions. “So what? I don’t have the potential to be loved?”

“What? No, of course you do.” Angela’s eyes went wide and repentant but Martin could already feel her words bouncing around his chest in a hollow echo of everything he’d always known to be true. He was a lost cause. Even magic couldn’t save him.

“You don’t need anything else because you’re already perfect,” Angela insisted, grabbing at Martin’s arm and holding on tight. “The problem isn’t with you, Martin, it’s with her. It doesn’t matter how many pieces of yourself you give to her, she’ll never appreciate it. It’s better to just let her go.”

“But she’s my _mum_ ,” Martin said and his voice broke as the word wobbled from his mouth. He’d thought he was done crying but more tears pooled up from deep inside him and his legs went weak beneath him. As he crumpled to the ground beside the counter, Angela braced a hand against the stool and levered her old body down to kneel in front of him.

“If she doesn’t want me,” Martin whimpered, “who will?”

“Martin.” Angela placed a gentle hand on Martin’s knee. “Any mother would be lucky to have you. I have never been luckier than when you found my store all those years ago. I would give you anything you asked for, as long as it is in my power, if it would make you happy.”

Martin looked up at Angela, tears slipping from his wide open eyes as he met her steady gaze. “I just, I just want to know _why_. Why now? W-what did I do wrong? Did I say something o-or wear something or not come often enough or come too much or,” Martin squeezed his eyes shut as he hiccuped out another sob, scrubbing his knuckles harshly over the swollen skin around his eyes. “How can I fix it if I don’t know what I did?”

Martin cried quietly into the empty silence of the store. Angela regarded him seriously, staring deep into his red-rimmed eyes as if that ivory earring of hers could see something in his soul that even he wasn’t aware of. The moment froze like a held breath, and then she broke it with a nod.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I have a kind of magic that will allow you to learn the truth.” Angela leaned heavily against the rungs of Martin’s stool as she pushed herself to standing. He heard the cracking of her old bones and realized he wasn’t crying anymore, just staring up at her in silent attention. “But it’s not like the trinkets around here. This is serious magic, and it’s not for the faint of heart.”

Martin scrambled to his feet, ashamed of the childish tear tracks staining his cheeks. “I can handle it.”

“Of course you can, dear,” Angela answered with a smile, and it didn’t feel patronizing at all. She pulled a tissue from the box still sitting on the counter and stepped in close to wipe roughly at Martin’s messy face. When she finished, he felt red and heated and worn out like the tears had swept away all his emotions.

“For this to work, you’ll get a little peek behind the curtain,” Angela said with a wink, looping her arm through Martin’s and guiding him towards the locked back room door that had been closed tight since he first walked in. “You have to pick your own or else it doesn’t work. There’s powerful energy in choice.”

“Like tarot cards?” Martin asked, and Angela chuckled.

“Yes,” she answered, pushing open the door. “Something like that.”

The first thing Martin noticed when he stepped into the back room was the crush of dead grass beneath his feet. There were no floorboards, only the soft earth and wooden walls built up around it. Then he noticed the smell, like iron and salt, so much stronger here than it was in the main room of the shop with its perfumes and candles. Then he noticed that there were no shelves, no stock, no boxes—nothing but a man kneeling in the center of the room, collared and chained and naked.

“Martin,” Angela said cheerily, her arm squeezing his where they were still entangled. “Meet the Archivist.”

The Archivist looked up at the sound of his name. When his eyes met Martin’s it was like the floor went out and Martin was sinking deep into an endless void of black and nothing.

Martin nearly fell over when Angela pulled them a few steps in closer.

“I know this looks quite startling,” she continued, oblivious to Martin’s slack-jawed stupor. “But the Archivist actually only _looks_ like a person. It is actually an accumulation of magic given a physical form. There used to be lots of ambient magic all over the world but then this greedy little thing gobbled it up and now my family gives it back to humanity.” Martin didn’t move as Angela detached herself from him and stepped forward to rest a proprietary hand on top of the Archivist’s head. “One piece at a time.”

Martin’s eyes skimmed down the Archivist’s scrawny form, cataloguing the cuts and scars and divots all up and down his skin. “You’ve been hurting him.”

“No, that’s the beauty of it.” Angela ran her hand back through the Archivist’s hair and Martin realized with sickening certainty where he recognized that pattern of black and gray from. He remembered nuzzling his face into Angela’s soft knit shawl just moments ago and bile rose in his throat. “As long as you don’t touch the eyes it all simply grows back. We can take as much as we want and it’ll just replenish itself.”

Angela’s hand wandered down and pulled at the skin—a familiar tan, too familiar, horribly familiar—beneath the Archivist’s eye, checking the whites like Martin might have investigated a dog. The Archivist sat patiently, unmoving, letting himself be manhandled. The heavy iron chains attached to the collar around his neck and the manacles tight around his wrists and ankles hung limply where they dangled before disappearing into the ground beneath him. He wasn’t struggling. He wasn’t trying to escape.

“Archivist,” Angela commanded in a sharp tone. “Open. We need a tooth.”

“A tooth? Oh, I really don’t—” Martin swallowed against the words that tried to tumble out in a panic as the Archivist obediently stretched his mouth open wide, tipping his head back so Martin could see all his glittering white teeth. A tiny rivulet of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth as he opened wide, and Martin could see a gaping hole where his canine should have been. In the red and swollen gum, he could see the point of a brand new tooth struggling its way into place.

“The most powerful magic there is.” Angela reached to the side and fetched a pair of pliers from a nearby end table. They looked so out of place, scrubbed clean and bright with cheerful yellow handles like a normal tool you’d buy in a normal hardware store. “The ability to pull the truth from someone, grown in the mouth of the Archivist.”

“But doesn’t he—”

“ _It_ , please, Martin,” Angela interrupted with a smile, the same smile she used to ask him how his day was or offer him a cup of tea. “We don’t want it getting any ideas.”

Martin felt his tongue going numb and wondered distantly if this was what going into shock felt like. “But doesn’t, um, doesn’t _it_ ….mind?” It was not the word he wanted, it was so far from the kind of question that belonged in this room with this person, creature, _something_ held down kneeling in the dirt, but Martin felt three steps behind. He was still in the shop being hugged by Angela, being told it was alright, believing that magic could be _simple_.

“The Archivist has been here for millennia. This is its purpose, it doesn’t know how to _mind_ it.” Angela chuckled in a way Martin thought was supposed to be calming. “Watch this. Archivist?” The man swiveled his dark eyes up to stare at Angela from beneath his long lashes. “This man would like a tooth from you.”

Those eyes snapped back to Martin and he felt his stomach shiver itself inside out. Slowly, almost luxuriously, the Archivist leaned forward and stretched its mouth open even wider, inviting, allowing Martin to see each glittering cusp. When Angela pushed the pliers into his hand, Martin’s fingers closed around it numbly.

“Pick whichever calls to you,” Angela instructed, laying a warm, calming hand against his arm.

Martin couldn’t look away from its _eyes_ , the irises so dark they melted into the pupil and left Martin sliding helplessly into their depths. He didn’t look away even as he guided the pliers up and into that waiting, glistening mouth. Angela’s hand wrapped around his to still his shaking as he gripped the second incisor—on the top and left to balance against the gap in the opposite corner where his canine used to be, some part of Martin’s brain thought hysterically—and squeezed the pliers tight. When he pulled back, he could feel the nerves pulling tight and snapping one by one.

Their connection was suddenly severed as the Archivist squeezed his eyes shut tight and screamed in pain. Somehow, without Martin noticing, Angela’s hand was already in the man’s hair, tugging his head back with a terrifying strength to keep his mouth open wide until Martin could pull out his glistening, bloody prize. The Archivist’s thin body seized, pulling against Angela’s hand as he tried to curl into himself. She clicked her teeth disapprovingly and pulled a vial from her pocket, pressing it carefully up against the side of his cheek where his tears were pooling and dripping free.

“Lucky.” Angela held the vial up in front of her eye, shaking it to see just how much liquid she collected. “I can mix you up some fresh new ink to take home with you when you go.”

“Actually,” Martin’s voice was shaking as much as his hands and he tried his best to plaster on a smile over his panic. “I think I’m alright on ink for today, plenty still at home. I only dropped by to see you, so I think I’ll head out now.”

“Oh?” Disappointment sparked in Angela’s eyes and for a moment, Martin felt guilty. “I suppose it makes sense that you’ll be wanting to get that to your mum as soon as possible.”

“My what?” Martin asked.

“Your mum.” Angela reached out and pulled the tooth from the grip of the pliers and pressed it into Martin’s waiting hand. “The tooth will let you ask your questions and she’ll be forced to tell the truth.”

“Oh, yes,” Martin replied faintly, almost tripping over his own feet as he began to stumble backwards. “Yes, I should really get back to her now.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Angela said with that smile that crinkled up the soft skin around her eyes. “And then I can finally teach you all about the real magic in this world.”

“Yes,” Martin agreed, and then he turned and fled from the room with the soft dirt floor and out the front door of the magic shop, brass bell jingling in his wake. He kept running all the way back to his new flat, ignoring the Underground in favor of weaving a panicked path through crowds of tourists and commuters. Every panting breath tasted like blood, and every time he blinked he saw that man, helpless and resigned with his dark eyes and wide, gaping mouth, just waiting for Martin to reach inside.

By the time he made it home, the tooth had left a divot in the thick flesh of his palm.

With shaking fingers, he pulled off the paper charm in its little green envelope that he’d kept tied to his bag ever since he’d first met Angela all that time ago. His lucky charm. His magic confidence. The paper tore easily in his hands and when he turned it over, out fluttered a tiny clump of long, dark eyelashes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter delves even more into dehumanization, human as product, and attempted self-harm. Please read responsibly!

Thirty-four years ago, the window had broken.

The Archivist had watched as it watched everything—with unblinking eyes that never slept. It watched the red rust spread, day by day, sinking into the hinges until they snapped under their own weight and hung there, a useless piece of splintered glass set unsteadily into a frame.

Six thousand four hundred and eight years ago, the Archivist had walked the earth.

It did not remember these times, the empty times, before it had been found and properly utilized. Back when it was nothing but a glass of water evaporating into the sun--potential, wasted. The Archivist had no memory of the time before the Magic Store, but it knew it had occurred, just like it knew its hands connected to its wrists. Each time the flesh was severed, it always stitched itself back together. Two equally inescapable truths.

Sometimes, the Archivist wished it had learned how to sleep. The nights were long and empty, and the chains the mortals had bound it with all those thousands of years ago barely gave it the range of movement to lift its head. Even if it could move, there would be nothing to do, the shop had nothing in it except bits and pieces of the Archivist itself, and those, as Angela always said, were for the customers. They were nothing to the Archivist anymore.

There was movement in the corner of the Archivist’s vision. Something was pushing at the fuzzy, cracked glass of the tiny window set high into the wall of the Archivist’s room, something that looked like a hand. With a puff of dust and a tumbling crash, the broken window fell off its rusted hinges and clattered to the dirt ground below. At the window, black on black in the moonless night, a figure flinched.

“ _Fuck_ ,” said the figure.

The man squeezed the bulk of his shoulders into the empty frame and tumbled entirely through in echo of the window, hitting the dirt with a muffled thump. He stood and fumbled on his sides until he found whatever he was looking for, and then a bright light flooded into the room and the Archivist’s wide pupils narrowed to a sharp point. Ah. A mobile. 

“Don’t be scared,” said the man, quickly gesturing downwards with his hands. The Archivist followed the motion with its eyes. What an odd introduction. The Archivist was immortal, what did it have to be afraid of?

In the light of the phone torch, the Archivist could recognize the man standing before it. He was the man who had come to take a tooth earlier that day. The Archivist prodded its tongue into the soft gap of its gum. Lateral incisor. Good for questions that slice to the heart of the issue. The Archivist tried to remember the way it used to pull the magic up into its throat and force truths out into the light, but it had not asked a question of its own in a very long time. It used to have a metal brace screwed into the hinge of its jaw that allowed its owner to lock its mouth both open and closed, but it hadn’t tried to bite anyone in a very long time. It hadn’t tried to talk in even longer. There was nothing to say.

The man reached out a hand and the Archivist realized what he must be here for. To take more teeth without having to pay. Angela would certainly be cross when she came back in the morning and found his mouth empty of everything but blood. That’s what she got for not protecting her belongings. She had grown complacent in her age.

“I’m Martin,” said the thief, which was a very strange thing for a thief to say. Leaving behind a clue to his identity was a good way to get caught. This man was either very confident or very foolish. The Archivist fixed its eyes on him, intent to figure out which. The thief, Martin, shivered when their gazes met. 

“Don’t be scared,” Martin said again, nonsensically—the Archivist was leaning towards considering him a fool—though perhaps he was simply reassuring himself. From a bag at his hip, he pulled out a heavy metal tool. Like pliers but much, much larger. _Bolt cutters_ , the Archivist thought, the knowledge drifting up through it.

More than a tooth, then. The Archivist cocked its head lightly to the side. Perhaps he came to cut out its tongue. It had been a long time since the Archivist had its tongue cut out. It was too expensive for most. Took a long time to grow back. And saliva couldn’t be harvested for weeks afterwards because all of it came out tinged with blood.

The Archivist opened its mouth obediently, letting its tongue loll from the front of its mouth. Martin flinched back like he’d been burned, revulsion rising up into his eyes. “Oh no, please,” he babbled out quickly. “There’s no need for that.”

The Archivist slowly blinked out its confusion but it retracted its tongue and closed its mouth as requested. Martin came and knelt in front of it, lowering his face closer to the Archivist’s face than anyone had in a long time. It could feel his warm breath pushing over the hair on its cheeks.

“Just stay still, I’ll be quick,” said the thief, and he lowered his bolt cutters to wrap around the thick chain that descended from the Archivist’s neck deep into the bedrock of the earth. With a powerful snap of his arms, the link in the chain cracked in half.

 _Oh,_ the Archivist realized. 

It was being stolen.

****

The Archivist’s new owner was a very strange man. He hadn’t brought any kind of covering or transportation device, just stripped off his jacket with more of those ever present apologies dripping from his mouth and swaddled the Archivist within it and carried the jacket and his prize at a frantic dash through the strangely glowing town around them. The Archivist tilted its head back to stare up at the tall buildings towering up all around it, the world it had not seen since the walls of the Magic Shop had been erected above its eyeline. It knew of some of these things, automobiles and trains and skyscrapers, but it knew of them in a clinical, distant manner. The inherent saturation of knowledge it could glean from Angela as she rested her bare hands against its cheek while she sliced its hair clean at the roots. Only one half, always leaving the other half the time it needed to grow.

The building Martin brought his new possession into was much larger than the Magic Shop, much newer as well although that was hardly surprising. The off-white plaster was chipped away to reveal rough red brick that chipped away to show the rotting structure underneath. Martin seemed exhausted as he struggled up the thin metal staircase within, his arms shaking just a bit under the strain of the Archivist’s bulk, his breath panting out in noticeable bursts of frozen air. It was then that the Archivist realized it was cold, what short hair there was left on its bare legs standing out stark against the winter night it had been dragged through. How novel.

“Chilly!” Martin declared, seemingly to no one. The flat they had entered into appeared abandoned, and certainly not big enough to house two people. He set the Archivist carefully down onto a faded blue couch and the soft muscles in its legs crumpled easily into kneeling on the cushions. It watched, unblinking as always, as Martin peeled off hat and scarf and gloves, rubbing at the fat of his upper arms to promote the blood flow. He must have been cold, without the jacket he wasted wrapping up his trophy.

“You must be cold,” Martin said, turning back to the Archivist, and it took a minute before the realization settled that it was being spoken to. The Archivist stared back at Martin, blank in its confusion. It did not get _cold_ , not in any way that mattered. If the blood froze in its veins it was a short wait before it began to flow again. A bit of frost would not damage the product.

“Do you want a blanket?” Martin continued, either not understanding the look he was given or choosing to ignore it. “Or maybe a bath?”

The Archivist spent a long moment considering the concept of wanting something. How was that to be determined?

“Sorry, do you have a name?” Martin leaned in a bit closer and then began to enunciate his words to a frankly insulting degree. “Do you un-der-stand En-glish?”

The Archivist narrowed its eyes. Did this thief not even comprehend what he had put himself at risk to steal? Of course a repository of all the magic in the world knew _English_. It opened its mouth and rolled its jaw around, trying to find the shape of the word yes against its tongue but it had been so very long since the last time it had spoken. So very long since anyone had needed it to speak. Finding a voice still buried somewhere inside it felt like an impossibly difficult task. It closed its mouth again.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” Martin nodded quickly. “I can call you, um, Angela called you the Archivist, do you like that?”

The Archivist blinked at its captor very slowly, in a way it hoped conveyed the deep disinterest it had in this discussion. Why was Martin bothering him with this? Did he simper and introduce himself and ask permission from every chair he sat on? With the way he acted, maybe he did.

“Alright, alright,” Martin rolled his eyes. “You’re very expressive, you know? But I’ll need something shorter. Could I...I mean, I could use Archie? But that doesn’t really fit you I mean, at the very least it’s disrespectful considering you’re apparently some kind of, some kind of _god_ or something. Or an, an angel at least. Oh gosh, I think I need to sit down.”

The Archivist watched silently as Martin sank to the ground in a dizzy heap, pressing a hand to the flat of his forehead. Around them, the apartment was alive with soft little noises, the settling of the wooden floors, the water draining through the pipes, the distant footsteps of someone unseen walking in places the Archivist had never been. It listened, and it absorbed them like its breath.

“Okay, nevermind, nevermind,” Martin shook his head, wild curls bouncing as he did so. “I can have an existential breakdown over my actions later. For now, we need to get you warm and clean and...sleep? Do you sleep?” The Archivist slowly shook its head and Martin amended quickly. “Well, warm and clean at least. You look a mess.”

Martin reached out a hand toward the dried blood tacking in the soft hair beneath the Archivist’s mouth, but stopped just short of touching. The Archivist looked from the hand to its captor’s face, waiting expectantly. If he wanted blood, there was plenty still fresh inside. Usually, Angela would come about once a week with a bucket and washcloth to clear the grime and blood off a section of skin she was about to harvest. Keep the coloration consistent. But she’d never cut off the skin on its face before. Not enough level surface area to make proper materials from.

“Come on,” Martin said, and then the Archivist was being hoisted to its feet, legs still unsteady and shaking beneath it. Martin looped an arm around it to give it the proper support to walk under its own power, which seemed silly since it had clearly been more efficient to carry it. The Archivist couldn’t think of any possible use Martin would have for keeping its leg muscles intact. 

They made their painstaking way down a little hallway to a tiny, white-tiled room. _A bathroom_ , came the knowledge, dripping like a leak into the Archivist’s mind. It compartmentalized it and moved on. Martin lowered the Archivist to the ground and it easily let its legs buckle again, slipping easily into the kneeling position it had rested in for thousands of years as if the weight of gravity had drawn furrows in its bones until they only fit together one way. It looked around as Martin fiddled with the tap, noting the cracked porcelain of the sink basin, the smudged mirror, the wooden cabinet constructed slightly wrong so that the door didn’t close all the way.

“You can sit comfortably, you know,” Martin said, drawing the Archivist’s attention back to him. He’d started the tap in the tub and it gushed out in a messy spray from the faucet behind him. The Archivist watched him, unblinking as always, waiting to see what would happen to it. “I mean, your knees must be bruised up something fierce after being chained for so long, you don’t have to sit on them anymore if you don’t want.”

The Archivist stared at the thief. The Archivist did not bruise, not in any way that mattered. Not in any way that lasted. 

“Like this,” Martin said in an almost patronizing tone as he took the sleeve of his own jacket still wrapped around the Archivist and pulled it slightly towards him, just enough to unbalance its occupant. The Archivist fell to the side silently, rolling over its shinbone, and coming to rest with its hip pressed into the cold tile and its cheek nestled in the impossible softness of Martin’s jumper. It blinked quickly, trying to process the press of fabric against its skin. It had never felt something like this, not that it could remember, nothing it could conjure up in its infinitely stretching mind could rival this single touch of jumper against the fragile skin of its face. The Archivist considered the possibility that no one, magic or mortal, had ever touched something softer.

In that moment, all the Archivist wanted to do was burrow its face in tighter. And then in the next moment, it remembered that it was nothing but a collection of bone and meat and tissue, and meat does not know how to want things.

“I’m gonna have to take this off you to give you a proper bath, sorry.” Martin levered the Archivist off his arm to start removing the coat from it, and then the feel of the fabric was gone and the Archivist felt strangely like it was blinking awake from a dream. Which was more strange because it never slept, and it never dreamed. The Archivist noted the blush staining over Martin’s face, his gaze falling away and to the side as the coat fell to the floor and Martin helped the Archivist slide over the rim of the tub and into the water within. 

Warm water. What an unnecessary waste.

“Is the temperature good?” Martin asked, dropping the tips of his fingers beneath the surface. The Archivist had very little to compare it to. It had never been bathed before. 

Martin sighed, but he smiled as well. A tired, sad smile. The Archivist wondered what exactly he would be sad about. “I suppose I should have expected you not to answer that. You aren’t really the _personal preference_ type, are you? Not that it’s your fault, you’ve been in a horrible place for a really, really long time. But you’re gonna be okay now. I’m gonna fix you up.”

Martin rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and dipped a washcloth into the water. When he dragged it across the Archivist’s cheeks, the touch was so gentle it couldn’t possibly have cleaned anything at all. Stupidly gentle. Pointlessly gentle. What did he think he was accomplishing?

“Maybe it’s presumptuous,” Martin said with that tiny, forced smile again. He grabbed a tube of shampoo and popped open the lid, pouring a generous amount into his palm. “I don’t even know what you are. I don’t know what you need or how you function.”

Martin’s fingers knit themselves into the Archivist’s hair, nails dragging lightly over its scalp. All around it, the warm water was sinking into muscles that hadn’t remembered they were allowed to ache. It was like rediscovering an extra sense that it had long forgotten how to even miss.

“I just couldn’t live with myself if I left you there. No matter what Angela said. Everyone deserves a life.”

Martin scooped the uselessly warm water up in a plastic cup and poured it out carefully over the Archivist’s hair until it was clean and shiny and the Archivist sat with its legs stretched out before it and its eyes half closed, waiting for the scissors that never came. Just firm and soft hands working all across his head and body, rubbing off the dirt and blood the Archivist had forgotten was even there and a mumbling voice telling him exactly what was about to be done just before it happened. The Archivist’s mind wandered, lazily, wondering how much would be harvested before it would be cleaned like this again. It tried to focus, remember the sensations to keep close to its chest for the next thousand years.

“There, all done.” The Archivist opened its eyes in surprise and confusion. It had never had more beautiful hair. It was even wet and straight, ideal for harvesting. But Martin seemed entirely unconcerned, bustling around fetching a towel and a robe. He had gone through all the trouble and danger of stealing the Archivist, and he didn’t even know what to do with it. _A true fool_ , the Archivist decided, but with the warm steam of the bath still sunk into its skin, the resolution didn’t have the vitriol it once had. 

The Archivist leaned forward and fished beneath the water for the drain. With a quick circle of its fingers, it gathered up the clumps of stray hair that had fallen as Martin had washed it. When Martin returned to the tub with the towel, the Archivist lifted its hand and held the clump of hair out towards him, insistently. 

“Oh.” Martin blinked in confusion but at least he knew enough to take the hair. “Thank you? I suppose?”

Insincerity. Clearly just hair hadn’t been enough to recompense its new owner for his caretaking. The Archivist opened its mouth and reached in for a tooth.

“Woah! No! Don’t do that!” Martin leapt forward and grabbed the Archivist’s hand firmly by the wrist, pulling it down and away from its mouth. “No need for that. This is plenty, really.”

The Archivist closed its mouth.

“Thank you, angel,” Martin said, smiling, and the Archivist watched as it always did. Unblinking.

***

“Good morning, angel.”

The Archivist—the _angel_ —opened its eyes at the sound of its new owner entering the room and was shocked to realize they had been closed. It could not remember a time where it had spent the night with its eyes closed instead of tracking the minute changes passing by the tiny high-set window in an attempt to stave off boredom. It was this bed. It was nothing but a simple box spring mattress covered in cotton sheets and furry blankets, and even still the gentle way it sank beneath the angel’s weight, cradling its body, was enough to lull it into a hazy state of relaxation.

Anything could have happened to it with its guard down like that. The angel slid the tip of its tongue over the backs of its teeth, counting to see if each was still accounted for. Nothing missing but the canine Angela had taken last week for a special order, and the lateral incisor Martin had plucked himself.

“Did you have a good rest?” Martin asked as he slid a hand under the angel’s back and levered him up to a sitting position. The angel moved easily with his hand, and stayed where he was put. Martin didn’t wait for an answer to his question, and the angel wondered if Martin’s ramblings were purely for his own benefit. Perhaps he was uncomfortable with silence.

“I was thinking I could make us some breakfast. Do you...eat human food? Eggs? Are eggs good?” The angel nodded. Of course it required human food. And eggs were as acceptable as anything else. With Angela it was usually soups, oatmeal, anything runny enough to pour into his mouth without him needing the use of his hands.

“Let me just get you to the kitchen…” Martin stretched his arms out across the bed but before he could, the angel swung its own legs off the side of the bed and pushed its wobbling way to standing. If its new owner was going to do it the kindness of leaving it unchained, the least it could do in return is not require him to carry it around like a child.

“Oh!” Martin said, and then quickly slipped an arm around the angel’s waist to support it. “Are you okay? Should you be walking yet?”

The angel scowled. It was just walking. It should be able to do this at least on its own. But there was something strangely warming about the way Martin mumbled out encouragement as they made their way slowly out of the bedroom.

“You’re doing so well,” he said, and, “Good job, angel.”

The angel, of course, was not an angel at all. A silly notion, considering angels were not real and the angel in all its infinite knowledge was assured of that fact. But it didn’t mind when Martin called it that, the name soft on his tongue like a caress. The angel had never been touched this way before, gentle and supportive, never taking too much. The angel had never been looked at this way before. The angel had never been called angel before. Just by Martin.

“There you go,” Martin said, helping it fold down into a chair at the kitchen table before puttering off to gather ingredients for breakfast. “I think I have some potatoes or peppers or something around here I can cut up to throw in. You could use the calories, you’re barely skin and bones.”

The angel said nothing about how skin and bones were really all it needed to be. The angel said nothing at all. On the kitchen table in front of it, there was a ripped white and green paper envelope next to a pile of long, dark eyelashes, and a tooth. Top left lateral incisor. Black with dried blood.

A sharp, electric ringing pierced the air and Martin nearly jumped out of his skin. The angel watched as he abandoned his half-cut potato on its cutting board and wiped his palms down on the rough flannel of his pajamas. “Christ, what time is it? I forgot to phone in sick to work.”

He rushed from the room to grab his ringing mobile. The angel sat in silence and regarded its own tooth on the table. Unused, but also kept. Clearly its new owner knew enough to see just how valuable magic was, even if he was too foolish to harvest any more. The angel looked at the edge of Martin’s shoulder still visible through the doorway, thought of the soft flannel of the bed, and rose unsteadily to its feet.

It was harder to walk, without Martin’s assistance, but the angel didn’t have very far to go. It rested its weight against the counter and picked up the kitchen knife Martin had left balanced on the edge of the cutting board. Carefully, the angel moved the potato Martin had cut so far so that it wouldn’t get sullied, and then lined up its finger beneath the sharp edge of the blade.

“Angel, _stop!_ ” Martin was there suddenly, grabbing both of the angel’s wrists and pulling its hands apart from each other. The knife clattered noisily to the counter top. “What are you doing?”

The angel didn’t think such a pointless question merited a response. It waited, silently, as Martin forced it back from the counter and down into the chair. It took longer than it should have because his hands were shaking with unnecessary anxiety. 

“You can’t cut yourself, angel, I don’t know first aid and that knife isn’t clean you could get an infection and I can’t very well take you to a hospital with you being some kind of spooky magic whatever you are.” The angel furrowed its brows tight together as Martin rambled on in a panic. “Plus, it’s just bad, okay? Hurting yourself is bad. We don’t do it. Okay? We don’t hurt ourselves.” 

The angel couldn’t help but pout. It wasn’t _hurting itself_. The finger would of course grow back. Objects didn’t get hurt, they just got broken, and then repaired. No one worried over a machine that could easily be fixed. And in the meantime the finger could be put to great use. The nails for good dreams, the blood for storytelling, the knucklebones for insight.

“What am I going to do with you if I can’t turn my back for even a second?” Martin fretted, screwing up his eyebrows in the picture of consternation. What a stupid question. He could do what every owner has always done with their angel. He could _properly utilize it_.

The angel reached across the table and picked up its tooth, holding it out towards Martin in the hope that he would understand. All the blood went out of Martin’s face and he snatched it from the angel’s hand.

“Oh god,” he gasped in horror. “I am so, so sorry. You shouldn’t have to see that.”

The angel furrowed its brows.

“I’ll throw it out right away.”

The angel’s jaw went slack with shock. _Throw it out?_ It could barely even process the concept. A tooth from the Archivist was some of the most powerful magic in the world. Why would he even have pulled it out if he didn’t have a use for it? When Martin turned towards the trash bin, the angel almost wanted to reach out and grab his arm, stop him, but it wasn’t a product’s place to decide what was done with it. 

Something cold and panicked started piling up like snow in the angel’s chest. Martin didn’t want its tooth. Martin didn’t want its magic. What was the point of keeping it around if it wasn’t useful? It would be better to be chained up back in the Magic Shop where it at least knew what its purpose was.

“Angel?” Martin’s hand landed on the angel’s shoulder and it realized its body was shaking. For a dizzying, confusing moment, it became aware of the fact that it wasn’t breathing. It couldn’t remember whether that was something it needed to do. “What’s wrong, what’s happening?”

It went for its teeth. It needed to prove itself, it needed to show Martin its value. It would give him every tooth in its jaw if it was what he wanted. And when they grew back it would give them all to him again. 

“Stop, stop, please stop,” Martin begged, grabbing for the angel’s hands and doing everything he could to trap them by its sides. “You don’t have to give anyone pieces of yourself.”

The angel nudged its nose desperately into the soft bulk of Martin’s shoulder and then stretched its mouth wide, letting out a tiny, barely audible whine.

“Okay,” Martin said, squeezing his eyes shut tight and taking in a deep breath. “Okay okay okay. Just for a little, just until you’re better, okay?”

Martin transferred both of the angel’s hands to one of his own, his long fingers wrapping entirely around both of its thin wrists, and it could feel its own tooth still nestled in Martin’s palm pressing into its skin. He pulled the angel to its feet and tugged it out of the kitchen and into the living room. Ahead of him, Martin was using his free hand to root through the pockets of his winter jacket. 

“Here we are.” The angel looked down as Martin released its hands from his grasp and slid a pair of thick purple mittens onto them. “And then let me just…”

Martin moved away for a second to rifle through an end table drawer and came back with a pair of rubber bands. He stretched each over the angel’s hands and secured them around the wrists. It could feel them through the fabric of the mittens, holding its hands secured.

“I’m not restraining you,” Martin said, deliberately slowly, staring the angel in the eyes. “I mean, I guess I technically am, but it’s just for your own safety, okay? You’re still free, and you’ll get them back when you’re not trying to hurt yourself, okay?”

The angel slowly regarded the bulky purple wool covering its hands. It brought a hand up and pawed ineffectually at its mouth, succeeding in nothing but leaving a shiny trail of spit along the fabric. 

Martin smiled just a bit, that same tired smile that looked like just a bit of happiness peeking through the eternal cloud of worry settled around him. “Purple is a cute color on you, angel. You look like you’ve got lil cat paws.”

A domesticated animal. A creature that used to be maintained within a household for a material benefit, but in modern times has evolved to be more of a comforting, emotional support. Is that what Martin had stolen him to be? It seemed like a waste, but at least it was a direction.

Slowly and deliberately, the angel mouthed a single, silent _meow_. Martin blinked in surprise and then started to laugh. The angel watched him laugh, drinking in the new information with wide, unblinking eyes. He looked better with a little bit of color in his cheeks.

“Exactly,” Martin said, the edge of a chuckle still in his voice. “Good kitty.”

Martin lifted his hand up and looked down at the tooth still rolling about in his palm. The angel looked at it with him.

“What do you want me to do with this?”

The angel reached forward and curled Martin’s hand into a fist and pressed it into his chest. This was what it felt like. To want. It wanted Martin to make use of it. 

“Okay, kit,” Martin agreed, slipping it into his pocket. “I’ll keep it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of this chapter is dedicated to the lovely Bloodsbane who inspired me with this amazing comic they drew!!
> 
> [you can check that out here!](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/670015159636590618/746150016967770162/image0.png)


	3. Chapter 3

Martin had no idea what he was doing.

He’d broken into Angela’s shop. He’d _kidnapped_ someone.

Well, he’d re-kidnapped someone. Whatever that man was, he certainly hadn’t been chained up in the back room of the Magic Shop by _choice._ Unless he had been. Unless it’d been some kind of millennia-long perfectly balanced supernatural ecosystem and Martin has blundered in like the asshole in a horror movie cutting down trees and demolishing old temples. But the man couldn’t even speak, how could he possibly have consented to a complex concept like willingly having his teeth pulled out and his skin peeled off?

Martin remembered the way the man had reached for his own mouth, intent on pulling out a tooth for Martin. Then he remembered the way his thin body had convulsed with painful screaming when the nerves had snapped in two.

No. He’d made the right choice. Kit would be safe here. He’d be safe from Angela and he’d be safe from himself.

Martin closed the bedroom door behind him and leaned back against it with an exhausted sigh. What a day. A small part of him was still tense, clenching his jaw with the tooth-grinding worry that Kit would find a way to harm himself alone in Martin’s bed, even with the mittens on, but Martin had barely had a second alone to himself since his poorly-thought-through Magic Shop heist and he needed a moment to _breathe_. He paced back down the hall to the living room and settled down on his couch, forcing his body to collapse back against the cushions and relax.

Martin squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the heels of his hands into them until the pain drowned out the headache growing in the back of his skull. What exactly had he gotten himself into? It wasn’t like he could skip on down to the local library and check out a book called _So you’ve adopted a several thousand year old pet. Handy tips and tricks!_ No one knew how to do what he was doing. Martin didn’t even know what Kit _was_.

Angela knew. Martin stared up at the ceiling and tried and failed not to think about how much he wanted her help. Every time his boss gave him a project with an impossible deadline, Angela had been the first one Martin had gone to. Around her, he could complain and cry and act like a kid and she’d give him tea, and advice, and a little talisman to boost his confidence, and it always worked. It had been so easy.

Martin reached into his pocket and fished out Kit’s tooth. He lifted it up above his eyes and swiveled it between his fingers, watching as the light caught and pooled against its smooth, curving surfaces. If he wanted easy, he had it in the palm of his hand. All the magic in the world was tucked away in his bed, pretending to sleep.

Kit would let him do it, if Martin wanted. Let him cut off a few pieces as recompense. A bit of hair, to help him at work, a few tears to write his poems. Earn them both a living so that nothing would have to be sold. Kit would let him do it with a smile, and be grateful. He didn’t know any better. Every time Martin tried to ask him anything about himself, his name, his past, even how his magic worked, Martin was met with a blank stare. Like the years Kit had spent in the Magic Shop had slowly hollowed him out from the inside until there was nothing left but the purpose everyone else had impressed upon him. To be used. 

When Martin closed his eyes, he saw the blade of the knife slicing down towards Kit’s skin. The only noise he’d ever heard the man make was to scream in pain. Every person Kit had ever interacted with had hurt him. Martin couldn’t be one of them. 

He could never use it. Not the tooth, not his tears, not even a single hair.

Martin closed his hand around the tooth and shoved it back into the depths of his pocket. He didn’t need the temptation. He had better things to do with his night than sit around feeling sorry for himself when someone clearly worse off needed him. Kit could use a change of clothes, ideally one that fit him a little better than the comically oversized spares Martin had draped on him. When Martin’s mum had left their house for the care home, she’d brought five neatly buckled suitcases of memories and belongings she wanted. Martin made six trips to haul back all the rest. They still sat in bulky cardboard boxes piled up in the corner of his front room where he’d left them. He’d never managed to work up the energy to sort through it all. 

One of them probably held some of his clothes from secondary school, before he’d had his growth spurt.

He cracked open box after box, pawing through dust covered junk. Old pictures of Martin and his mum in splintered frames, plastic trophies he’d won, a few embroidery projects he remembered his mum complaining about the color of. Elbow deep beneath a pile of old winter coats worn threadbare, he found a tiny plastic case--the kind with a well for each day of the week, that he’d used to keep his mum’s medication straight. It rattled when he shook it.

When he popped open the door marked _Monday_ , it was filled with three, tiny, white baby teeth. Martin’s baby teeth, collected and forgotten like so much junk. They looked so small compared to Kit’s tooth, not even as wide as the pad of Martin’s finger as he fished one out. If he never used the magic of Kit’s tooth, Martin would never know why his mum had abandoned him. For a bitter, selfish moment Martin was jealous of Kit for being _wanted_. Every piece of him was valuable. Even Martin’s own mother didn’t want his teeth.

Martin shook his head and stuffed his baby tooth in his pocket next to Kit’s. He might not be wanted, but he was needed. Kit needed him. And even if it was pathetic that the only person who chose to stay with Martin was traumatized and restrained, unable to use his hands or his voice, he was still here. And Martin was going to do everything he could to be useful to him.

*** 

Martin kept Kit’s tooth in his pocket. Kit got upset when he didn’t.

It probably should have been concerning that Kit needed to be used in order to feel comfortable, but it had only been a few days and at this point, Martin was happy to use any shortcut available to him. 

He was getting better, anyway, the angel, Kit, the Archivist, whatever his actual name was. He still either couldn’t speak or wasn’t confident enough to, but as the days passed he slowly unfurled from his shell. Martin discovered that he was an avid reader, even though with the mittens on he couldn’t turn the pages by himself. If Martin pulled him in to lean on his chest so that he could see the book Martin was holding, Kit would almost always relax after a few moments and burrow in deeper to his side.

They also did puzzles together, the ones Martin had bought to do with Angela. Martin would control the pieces and Kit would point to the ones he wanted to use with a mitten and then nudge his head against Martin’s shoulder when he was holding it above the right place. It was slow going, but it was nice to see Kit’s dark and focused eyes trained on something that wouldn’t hurt him.

Once, Martin considered taking the mittens off, but sometimes Kit would watch him write poetry and try to stab himself in the thigh with a pencil to cry on the ink, so the mittens stayed on.

He couldn’t leave Kit unsupervised. Without the use of his hands, Martin had to help Kit eat, help him shower, help him change his clothes. He’d called in sick four days in a row now, and eventually he was going to burn through all of his vacation days. Not to mention the fact that they were going to run out of food in the apartment, and Martin didn’t exactly feel comfortable dragging some all powerful being he’d stolen from a genuine witch down to the corner store.

It wasn’t Kit’s fault, of course it wasn’t Kit’s fault, but Martin was feeling run ragged. His spine ached from sleeping on the couch and his brain was constantly on overdrive making sure Kit was safe, and food was cooked, and calculating exactly how long his savings would hold out after he was inevitably fired before he and his pet god would be tossed out on the streets. He’d pull out one of his own teeth just for someone to _talk_ to about it all.

He tried talking to Kit every now and then--not about the stress he was under Kit didn’t need to know that--just about the everyday mundanities of life. Martin figured if he actually used to be a person, maybe a human routine would help jog Kit’s empty memory. Sometimes, a nagging voice in the back of Martin’s head wondered if Kit didn’t know of a life beyond being used because that was genuinely all he existed for. Some kind of magical being with a human shape and no consciousness underneath.

But other times, Martin would put on a documentary and Kit would watch it so intently he would nearly fall off the couch, or Martin would read a book aloud and Kit would tug on his sleeve each time he needed a line repeated, or Martin would blow on Kit’s food to cool it and Kit would watch him with so much soft gratitude melting in his dark eyes that Martin had no doubt in his mind that Kit was as much a person as Martin himself. Kit just needed to believe it himself.

“Kit, could you come here for a moment?” Martin poked his head into the kitchen where he’d left Kit safely seated at the table with a mug of milk tea. He was pretty sure Kit appreciated being given mugs, because even with the mittens on he could lift and drink from them all by himself. A few days ago he’d laid out three different mugs, each with a different combination of milk and sugar, and tried to goad Kit into indicating which one he liked best, but the concept seemed to go over his head. Kit had just waited, staring at Martin until Martin offered one, and then he accepted what he was given and drank until Martin offered another. But at the very least, Martin was sure he liked tea.

Kit looked up at Martin and then back down at his mug and Martin huffed out a tired laugh. “You can bring your tea,” he added.

As Martin kept a careful eye on Kit to make sure he wouldn’t burn himself while wrapping the thick, purple mittens around the mug and lifting it gently into his chest, he wondered if this was how his mum had felt. Like there was a piece of her that had to be constantly given to Martin because he was reliant on her. No wonder she had been so tired of it when she was already sick all the time. He should have done more for her.

Martin rested a hand gently beneath Kit’s elbow and guided him down towards the couch. Just a little help, to make sure he stayed steady. Even if Kit was some magical being that healed instantly, he was still walking again for the first time in thousands of years. Martin wrapped his hands around Kit’s mug, edging his fingers underneath the mittens.

“Can I have this for just a second, Kit?” Martin asked. He didn’t want to make Kit feel like all his decisions were still being made for him, even though whenever he asked something, Kit silently obeyed. Martin wondered if it even registered that they were questions, not commands. But still, when Kit’s grip loosened, Martin pulled the mug away and set it down on the coffee table.

“You can have it back in a second,” Martin promised, and Kit stared at him and said nothing.

“I found this a few days ago,” Martin began explaining as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little velvet bag he’d saved after it came with a pin from a craft fair. He’d tried to make it look nice as best he could without being able to leave his flat to go to the shops. It might be the first present Kit has ever received. “And I’ve been working on it these last few nights after you went to bed.”

Maybe, lying awake all night, Kit had heard him cursing over the pinpricks in his fingertips. It had been harder than he expected it to be, working with something so small and fragile.

“It’s for you.” Martin had to reach out and take Kit’s wrist, pull his hand down so that Martin could deposit the tiny package into his palm. Kit stared at it with the wide-eyed confusion of a child. “You have to open the bag first.”

Kit brought his other mitten up to the mouth of the bag and Martin helped him pull it open and dump out its contents. Martin’s baby tooth, wrapped in a little bit of wire and strung on a necklace string. When Kit lifted it up to his eyes, Martin could see his hand was shaking.

“I figured since I was holding on to yours it was only fair for you to get one of mine.” Martin chuckled for a moment. “Even though it’s far from equivalent considering mine isn’t worth anything.”

Suddenly, Kit sat up straight and began looking around wildly. He grabbed for his mug of tea, looked inside it, and then put it back down with a thump. Martin was so shocked, it took him a moment to respond. He couldn’t remember Kit moving this quickly or with this much urgency since he’d rescued him from the Magic Shop. Kit tried to rise to his feet too quickly and stumbled, falling half onto his knees and half onto Martin where he’d moved to catch him. Martin could feel Kit’s body shuddering against him, and suddenly he realized exactly what was wrong. 

Kit fumbled for the little velvet bag the gift had come in and rushed to bring it up to his chin just as the first tears welled up and tumbled free.

“Kit…” Martin murmured, his heart twisting up at the sight of Kit struggling to position the bag just right to catch each tear, even as his hands inside the mittens trembled with the force of his sobbing. “Kit, you don’t have to do that.”

Gently, Martin wrapped his hands around Kit’s wrists and pulled them down and away from his face. Kit closed his eyes and bit his lip, trying to hold back the tears while he struggled to free his hands. Martin pulled him in close until Kit’s face was nestled into his shoulder and he had no choice but to let every tear soak uselessly into the fabric.

“You don’t need to give me anything in return,” Martin whispered soothingly in Kit’s ear. “You’re allowed to just cry. You can just cry for yourself. That’s enough.”

Sitting on the floor of his living room, holding Kit’s wrists tight to his sides and rocking him gently as he sobbed, Martin felt like a rock in a storm. He could be this for Kit. He could be whatever Kit needed. 

***

It was the morning of the fifth day when everything finally ended. They’d been reading together, curled up on the couch, when Kit looked up sharply from where he was tucked into Martin’s side. The knock on the door came a moment later. It was quiet, almost gentle, but it set Martin’s pulse racing. He lowered his book to his lap and closed it.

“Too much to hope that it’s just my boss come to fire me in person, huh?” He murmured to Kit. Kit stared back at him, his dark eyes betraying nothing. Martin might think he was carved out of stone, if not for the warm press of his skin against Martin’s. He was sure he was scared, whatever being scared meant for whatever Kit was. They both knew what was on the other side of that door. Martin had been bracing himself every day for Angela to track them down. There wasn’t much avoiding it at this point.

“Maybe you should go hide in the bedroom,” Martin offered, but Kit bundled up the fabric of Martin’s sleeve in the grip of his mittens and squeezed tight. The message was clear: he wasn’t going anywhere. Martin couldn’t help shaking his head over the fact that after days of trying to teach Kit how to make his own decisions, this was the moment he chose. “Alright. Just stay close.”

The knocking came again, just a bit more insistent, and Martin looked around his apartment for something to defend himself with. He’d put away most of the sharp things where Kit couldn’t reach them, and he didn’t want to _stab_ Angela. She was just an old woman, and probably still his closest friend. Martin squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, trying to breathe through the beginnings of a headache. He’d just wanted a normal life. How had it gotten so twisted?

Martin ended up bringing the novel to the door. A hardcover book probably wouldn’t stand up to a magical assault, but it was firm and heavy and he felt better with it in his hand. He glanced over at Kit for a moment, wrapped fiercely around his arm, but his angel was staring forward at the door. Or maybe at what he could see beyond it. Martin swallowed his breath and opened the door.

“Hello Martin,” Angela said. She looked just how he remembered, or maybe just a little more tired. The soft skin of her face drooped into deep wrinkles, and her silver hair stuck out messily from its usually immaculate bun. She was wrapped in her gray shawl made of Kit’s hair. In her ear, Martin could see the flash of the earring made of Kit’s own carved bone. His nostalgia turned sour in his stomach.

“You can’t have him.” Martin lifted the book threateningly above his head. He wasn’t sure what he meant to do with it, but he needed to be doing something or he might have a breakdown right there in his doorway.

Angela eyed the upraised book and sighed. “I’m not here for him.”

“You aren’t?”

“I just want to talk,” Angela explained, and she at least sounded sincere. Slowly, Martin placed the book onto the end table next to the door, willing to give her at least that much benefit of the doubt. “May I come in?”

“Why now? Why show up now and not four days ago?” Martin didn’t budge from where he stood blocking the entrance.

“Well I would have come sooner, Martin,” Angela said, with a hint of the gentle teasing in her voice that was so familiar to him. “But someone stole my source of magical information gathering. It takes a woman a little longer to do things through mundane means.”

Angela’s eyes wandered to Kit as she spoke and Martin instinctually pulled him back, situating his bulk between her and her ex-captive. “I’m not going to let you use him again.”

Angela sighed as if Martin was being a child and something inside him bristled. He used to enjoy it when she treated him like a kid, but now it felt demeaning, as if he couldn’t make his own decisions.

“Martin, please.” Angela held her hands up, flat and unarmed in front of her. “I’m an old woman, I’ve been stripped of my magic, I’m alone, and I brought tea in my bag. May I please come in and talk to you?”

“And what happens if I say no?” Martin narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“Nothing happens, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Angela put a hand over her heart and looked up at Martin endearingly. “You control the Archivist, you have all the power here. But I care about you, and I thought you cared about me, and I hoped that maybe all the time we spent together earned me a little bit of time to speak my piece before you cut me out of your life forever.”

Martin swallowed and finally stepped back. “Fine,” he agreed. “You can have an hour. But neither of us are drinking any tea you prepare.”

If there was hurt breaking in Angela’s eyes at his distrust, Martin ignored it. He waved Angela towards the couch and brought Kit into the kitchen. It was good to be making tea, gave him a slow ritual to gather himself. He snuck his hand down into his pocket and felt the sharp edge’s of Kit’s tooth. A reminder of what she had done. 

“You okay so far?” Martin asked Kit quietly, beneath the whistle of the kettle going off. Kit nodded, but his chin was tucked and his chest was curled in. Martin couldn’t forget what he was doing this for. _Who_ he was doing this for. There was nothing Angela could say to make him forget the atrocities she’d committed.

She was settled into the armchair when he walked back out with tea, looking small and vulnerable swallowed up in the oversized green cushions. Martin set her mug in front of her and then sat on the couch with Kit, making sure to situate himself between the two of them. He didn’t like the way they were staring at each other.

“Well?” Martin prompted after Angela leaned forward to retrieve her tea, blowing gently at the steam rising from the top. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I didn’t come here to justify my actions.” Angela took a sip of tea and closed her eyes. “I came here to offer you the shop.”

Martin’s mouth fell open. “I’m sorry?”

“My daughter refuses to take it on herself, but you, Martin, you’ve become like a son to me over these past few years.” Angela sat up and reached over to lay a gentle hand on Martin’s knee. “You’re a smart and capable boy, and clearly you have a strong rapport with magic. That shop has been in my family for a dozen generations, I want it passing into the right hands.”

“How could you even think I’d do those awful things?” Martin sputtered.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You’d run the shop, you’d make the decisions.” Angela leaned back again and gestured offhandedly to Kit where he sat docile by Martin’s side, hands bound up in the purple mittens. “Clearly you’ve figured out a form of restraint that works just as well as the chains. You could live with it if you like it, and you wouldn’t need to pull out the teeth or cut out the bones or anything you find distasteful.”

Martin’s brain struggled to process the word _distasteful_. Beside him, Kit had gone perfectly still.

“But really,” Angela continued, heedless. “Hair comes out when you comb it, and we all spit every time we brush our teeth. If the thing trips and scrapes its knee are you really going to close your eyes and wash the blood down the drain when it could really _help_ someone? Weren’t you glad to have the Archivist’s magic when you needed it?”

Martin shook his head slowly, trying to reason out why the words were wrong. They had to be wrong somehow. “It’s a piece of him, it’s not right for me to use it for myself.”

“Why? Who are you hurting, Martin? A few stray lashes collected and put in a bag? Collecting tears when they happen to fall? You didn’t hurt anything, Martin. And you _deserved_ that magic, didn’t you?” Angela’s voice went soft and insistent. “You work _so hard_ Martin. For your mum, and now for this creature you don’t even know. You’re giving up your whole life to take care of them, isn’t it fair you get something in return?”

“I don’t do these things to be _paid_ for it.”

“That’s because you’re kind, Martin, but you’re also naive.” Angela sets her mug down on the coffee table with a thunk. “If you keep doing things purely out of the goodness of your heart, the world won’t reward you for it. It doesn’t make you a bad person to support your own livelihood.”

Martin swallowed hard, thinking of his meager bank account, the job he was probably going to lose.

“It’s not cruel for the dairy farmer to sell a cow’s milk. The cow gets fed and housed and cleaned and cared for, and the farmer gets the money needed to keep them both alive.”

A surge of anger rose up through Martin, and he pulled himself out of his spiralling thoughts to glare properly at Angela. “Kit isn’t an _animal_ , he’s a person. You can’t take pieces of his body without his consent.”

“I wanted to explain this to you sooner, Martin,” Angela said with a tired sigh. “You’re so dreadfully new to magic and how it works.”

Martin narrowed his eyes. His hand tightened around the handle of his mug. “Explain what?”

“The Archivist looks like a human, but it isn’t one. It isn’t an animal either. It is nothing but a receptacle.” Angela’s voice was callous and unconcerned. She didn’t even look at Kit as she spoke. “It is nothing but a collection of bone and meat and tissue that absorbed all the magic in the world and now is a walking repository. I know you’re a sweet boy, and you think you were trying to help by stealing that thing, but I promise, it doesn’t matter what we do to it. You’re not hurting anything because there’s nothing actually inside there. It’s just an empty thing we draw from to give magic to the world. Don’t _real people_ deserve some magic in their lives? Don’t you deserve a little help, for working so hard all this time? Just let me give that to you, sweetheart. Let me make things easier for you.”

There was a muffled thump as Kit hit the floor, knees first. Martin turned at the sound and stared in horror at the slump of his shoulders, the dip of his head, kneeling motionless like a doll in exactly the same position he’d been in when Martin had first seen him in the back room of the Magic Shop. 

“There we are,” Angela crooned from behind him. “Even the thing knows its place.”

“Kit?” Martin tried, his voice catching in his throat, but Kit didn’t respond. He reached down to shake Kit by the shoulder and he was heavy and limp, like a dead thing. “Kit that’s not true, I know you’re a person in there, I’ve seen it.”

“The Archivist just wants to be useful, Martin,” Angela said, but Martin refused to turn to face her. “You’re the one being cruel, letting all its potential go to waste. If you care so much for it, you’ll let it serve its purpose.”

Martin thought of the tooth in his pocket, the panicked look in Kit’s eyes when he had tried to throw it out, the hair he’d fished from the tub and forced into Martin’s hands. He did just want to be used. But how could he know any better after thousands of years of this? He didn’t know anything different. Martin slipped a hand into his pocket and gripped the tiny sharp-edged tooth between his fingers. His mum may not want him around anymore, but there was someone here who did.

With a single, quick motion, Martin pulled the tooth from his pocket and pushed it forward into Angela’s chest. His hand nestled against the silky hair of her shawl and it was familiar in so many different ways, all of them painful, but Martin’s voice didn’t shake as he drew the burning magic up from his palm and into his voice.

**“Tell me the truth.”**

Angela stared up at Martin in horror as her jaw went slack and words began to fall from her mouth in a terrifying jumble.

“A long long long time ago,” she babbled, and Martin felt sick seeing the panic in her eyes as she tried desperately, futilely to stop talking. But she couldn’t, and Martin sat and listened. “Long long ago before the world was as it is now, there was magic all around for those who knew how to access it. But the magic was fearsome and poorly understood and most humans were afraid. Those few who dared to try and capture the magic for themselves usually perished in the attempt, but a tiny number survived. The Archivist survived. He had traveled around, they say, collecting stories of magic until he understood it better than anyone in the entire world did, and he was powerful, horribly, awfully powerful. And all the other humans were afraid. My ancestor told her daughter, told her daughter, all the way down to me that coming across the Archivist was not like seeing a human at all, it was more like a god or a demon the way it would peel the stories of magic from people’s lips.”

Angela tried to lift her hands to cover her mouth, but even that couldn’t stop the story. 

“They were scared, they were all scared of him, scared and envious of what he had achieved when they could not. It wasn’t fair, they thought, my ancestor thought, that one human should have all the magic all to himself. So they devised a trap to catch him and bind him with thick chains that descended deep into the earth, to the bedrock itself, such heavy chains that even the Archivist could not escape. And my ancestor, she built the walls around him, she built the Magic Shop so that everyone else could have a piece of what the Archivist had gathered for himself.”

Silence fell over the room as Angela’s words finally dried up in her mouth. Martin turned and looked at Kit where he sat kneeling on the floor, staring up at Angela with wide eyes.

“So?” Martin asked. Kit’s eyes swiveled up to him with that same shell shocked look. “Do you remember it?”

Kit breathed in, long and deep, his thin chest expanding, and then nodded.

“Martin, I didn’t—” Angela started to beg.

“I think,” Martin cut her off, coldly. “It’s about time for the Archivist to decide what he wants to do.”

Kit rose silently to his feet. He turned to Martin and held out his hands palm up, a wordless request. Martin acquiesced, pulling the rubber bands off his wrists and then sliding the mittens up and off. Kit stretched his fingers out and then balled them into fists.

“Don’t let it _out!_ ” Angela gasped, fear suddenly flooding into her voice. “That thing is dangerous, it’ll kill me!”

“He,” Martin corrected, “is not nearly as depraved as you are.” 

But still, Martin glanced back at Kit, just to make sure. Kit met his eyes and gave him a tiny smile before turning back to face Angela.

“Why should you get to have all the magic in the world?” Angela snapped out, panicked. “How is that _fair?_ Doesn’t everyone deserve a little magic?”

Kit stepped up in front of her and leaned over, taking her jaw between his fingers and forcing her mouth open. With his other hand he trailed a finger along the cusps of each of her teeth. Angela stared over Kit’s shoulder at Martin, her wide and tearful eyes begging him to help her. Martin felt a tugging in his chest. He’d really loved her.

Kit braced a hand on the arm of the chair to curl tight over Angela’s ear. Martin watched as his lips moved, but he couldn’t hear the words. A tear overtipped from the corner of Angela’s eye and spilled down her cheek. And then Kit stood up straight and stepped back and Angela jumped to her feet and fled from the flat.

Martin stared at Kit until he looked back from the door and met Martin’s gaze. “You remember everything now?”

Kit dropped his gaze as he nodded, almost guilty, and Martin’s stomach dropped with it.

It was a wonderful thing, better than anything Martin could have hoped for. So why did he feel like his heart was shattering like jigsaw pieces? “So what now, Archivist? What do you want to do with your life?”

Martin dug his nails into his palm tight to keep himself from crying as Kit turned away towards the door out of the flat. This was good, this was healthy. Kit finally had his life back, he could finally pursue his own happiness. That had always been the goal. It was terrible of Martin to hope that Kit might still _need_ him for something.

Kit paused at the door and turned to the side. He picked up the book Martin had abandoned on the end table and turned back into the room, rushing back up to Martin’s side and pushing the book into the center of his chest. Martin felt his knees go wobbly and he collapsed back onto the couch as the sobs started to crawl up through his throat. Kit sat beside him, eyebrows screwed up in concern as he brought his soft hands up and brushed the tears aside as quickly as they fell.

“A book?” Martin asked, his voice cracking in half pathetically over the words. “There has to be something more than that. There has to be more I can do for you. There has to be some way I can _help._ ”

Kit’s eyes were soft and dark as he reached out and took Martin’s hand and brought it up until it rested on his chest. Under the flimsy material of his shirt, Martin could feel the outline of his own tooth, dangling on its cord, tucked safely away against Kit’s skin. With his other hand, Kit reached out and curled his fingers into the neckline of Martin’s jumper and dragged him closer. Kit lifted himself up just enough to press his mouth in tight to Martin’s ear, until Martin could feel Kit’s lips moving against his skin.

“You are a person,” Kit whispered in a husky voice that was barely even audible. “You don’t have to give anyone pieces of yourself.”

Martin opened his mouth to protest, but the words caught in a jumble in his throat. Was that really what he had been doing all this time? Giving everything to his mum, and then to Kit, because he wanted to be needed, to be useful, to be _used_. He’d spent all this time trying to teach Kit to want things, and he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d wanted something for himself.

When Martin looked back up, Kit was watching him in that way of his, with his wide eyes unblinking and insistent. But there was something new in them now, a spark, a curiosity that hadn’t been there before. A force that seemed to push at Martin and ask what _he_ wanted to do.

“I think,” Martin said, stumbling for a second over the words. “I’d like to get to know you. This you, with your memories intact.” After a moment’s hesitation, he couldn’t help but add, “If that’s alright with you, Kit. Or, um, I guess you must remember your real name now, don’t you.” 

Kit smiled, warm and genuine, and then reached out and took Martin’s hand in both of his own, situating it palm up. Kit settled himself in tight against Martin’s shoulder as he slowly traced letters into Martin’s palm with a delicate fingertip. _J - O - N._

“I see,” Martin laughed. “It’s very nice to meet you, Jon.” 

Jon laced his fingers into Martin’s and squeezed tight in agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! And a big thank you to elodie/ravenxavier who supported this idea when all I had for it was "ghngn wanna see jon's teeth get pulled out" and didn't even calling me weird for it XD
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! This was a true labor of love.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like the story, come chat with me! I'm on tumblr [@apatheticbutterflies](https://apatheticbutterflies.tumblr.com/) and I'm very fun and friendly.


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